How are the ALMS cars "prototypes"?

[JAXRS6]

I was just reading an American Le Mans Series brochure that came with my Sebring tickets. In explaining the classes it says the following:

"LMP1: Premier high-tech Le Mans prototypes feature exotic purpose-built race cars...."

My Webster's first definition of prototype is "an original model on which something is patterned." So what has the six-year-old R8 been a prototype for? If Audi was going to pattern a production car after the R8, what car would that be?

Nordschleife made it clear in a post elsewhere that there is scant if any resemblance between the R8 and the possibly forthcoming Le Mans production car. So if it's not the Le Mans, what is it? Or is the "prototype" reference just hype -- a way to build one-off race cars with no intention of following thru on the production side?

[Nordschleife]

Prototype is French for a racecar with covered wheels. Its all down to the ACO, which is made up of a bunch of fag smoking, garlic chewing, knicker snapping country town boys. their grandfathers thought it would be fun to race cars 'all of the day and all of the night' and so the Le Mans 24 Hour race was born.

Its still a good place to go and snap knickers. The French version of the Hawaiian Tropic Girls is very ooh-la-la!

R+C

[5000S old skool]

Alot of the engine/transmission concepts used on these race cars, are then later put into the make's production line, after close study. For example.. FSI amd FSI Turbo. So the name "prototype" may not be the best name for these cars, however they can be a prototype for certain concepts which havent been tested on street legal cars yet.